Posted on 06/07/2026 6:29:25 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
Last Sunday, I met an Arab Christian who was visiting our church. In a respectful way, he poured out his heart concerning the plight of his people in the Middle East and his sadness at how few American Christian pastors ever say anything positive or hopeful about Arab Christians...
So I thought it would be good to publicly affirm a few positions that I think the Bible mandates:
- True Christians are citizens of the kingdom of Jesus Christ first, and only secondarily citizens of any earthly nation or state.
- American Christians are more closely united to Palestinian Christians and Arab Christians and Jewish Christians throughout the world than we are to the state of non-Christian Israel.
- Israel was chosen by God from all the peoples of the world to be the focus of special blessing in the history of redemption, which climaxed in Jesus Christ, the Messiah.
- God has saving purposes for ethnic Israel (Romans 11:25–26), as he does for the Arab nations (Isaiah 19:19–25; Psalm 22:27; Matthew 28:19–20; Romans 3:29–30).
- The Christian plea in the Middle East to Palestinians and Jews is: “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31). This is the path to peace. “Jesus himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility” (Ephesians 2:14).
- Therefore, all Christians, especially Christian pastors, should speak openly and joyfully of our unity with Arab and Jewish Christians...
(Excerpt) Read more at desiringgod.org ...
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You conveniently skipped over these from your excerpt
Deceitful..
But hey, that’s one way to live.
.......
God promised to Israel the presently disputed land from the time of Abraham onward. God said to Moses, “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, ‘I will give it to your offspring’” (Deuteronomy 34:4).
Israel, like every other nation on the earth, including all Arab states, does not affirm Jesus Christ as God, Messiah, and Savior, and is, therefore, not a covenant-keeping people in relation to God. Rejecting the Son of God is rebellion against the God of the covenant.
A non-covenant-keeping people — Jewish or Arab — does not have a divine right to hold the land of promise while they are living in rebellion against the God who promised it to an obedient people. “If you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples” (Exodus 19:5).
This does not mean that other nations have the right to molest Israel, nor Israel to molest her neighbors. Israel and the surrounding nations still have human rights among nations, though they have no divine right to claim the land while rejecting the Messiah.
"For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel." (Romans 9:6) The true people of God are spiritual, not just ethnic.
A word limit, but you skipped over to add more words...
And those words you skipped over sort of buries the lead.
Not a great look...
But I’m not trying to sell anything like you are..
The New Testament prioritizes identity in Christ over ethnic origin or geopolitical maps. Yet the latter is what too many believers of a certain persuasion end up getting locked in, at the expense of the Gospel, and in favor of toxic idolatries.
All believers regardless of ethnic origin or locale are co-heirs in Christ by faith.
You rightly pasted the harsher reminders Piper has for those Christians who try to use the Bible to justify racism and war-mongering.
Do Arab Christians want America to bomb Israel so they can live in Israel where Christ walked or do they just want American Christians to see that Arab Christians living in the Middle East are in peril because they live in an area filled with antichrists of Judaism and Islam?
If they could make it to America, they’d see plenty of antichrists here, too.
I just hope they aren’t looking to America and its bombs as the only chance they have to obtain peace in their life.
That’s what Christ is to give them.
But the reality is there’s plenty of Christians worldwide that aren’t looking to Christ for their peace. They may find themselves looking to America..
And maybe Christians around the world would be interested to know that Christ and His 12 is exactly the number America began with, 13.
And both His Church and America grew at/to 50.
Maybe Christians around the world aren’t wrong to look to America for help.
It might be baked into America’s prophetic cake.
All the while it’s the Church that’s supposed to support around the world. And some look to Rome and not America when they hear ‘Church’.
What a great example of Divine Providence..
Except, of course, when it comes to "white chrstians."
I don't get it. I have never gotten it. And I grew up in the Bible Belt South.
Yet over and over and over right here on FR non-white chrstians are thrown under the bus as if chrstianity were an ethnic religion--a sort of Shinto--for white people. What the hey??? Are not non-white chrstians and white chrstians co-religionists? Were Paul and the apostles "white chrstians?" (Of course non-white chrstians have become just as bad.)
You can always count on certain people who ignore all this and pull out the "universalist" card only for attacking the Jewish people. Then suddenly we're all brothers living on a big blue marble in space. But when people are screaming their lungs out about "white chrstians" count on them to be totally silent.
I've never seen so much hypocrisy.
Quote-The New Testament prioritizes identity in Christ over ethnic origin or geopolitical maps. Yet the latter is what too many believers of a certain persuasion end up getting locked in, at the expense of the Gospel, and in favor of toxic idolatries.
All believers regardless of ethnic origin or locale are co-heirs in Christ by faith._______________
Interesting point. The dynamics of latter day eschatology scripture interpretations.
They greatly rely on the well used Old Testament phrase...”I will bless those who bless thee and curse those who curse thee”. Do you want to be blessed?
Funny thing is Jesus himself did not emphasise this issue at all during his ministry.
You label the view that the Church is the “Israel of God” as “Replacement Theology” and “flawed.” However, that terminology ignores the distinction between replacement and fulfillment.
The Apostle Paul is clear in Romans 9:6: “For not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel.”
The Church did not “replace” Israel; the Church is the continuation of the faithful remnant of Israel, expanded to include all nations by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13-14).
If you believe that biological descent from Jacob is what defines God’s people rather than faith in the Jewish Messiah, you are holding to a definition of “Israel” that the Apostles explicitly rejected. If the Church is not the “Israel of God” (Galatians 6:16), then who exactly does Paul think he is blessing?
” non-white chrstians are thrown under the bus as if chrstianity were an ethnic religion-”
Where?
I label the Church New Covenant Israel because the Church is being led to follow the very same pattern Old Covenant Israel followed.
I’d label modern Israel in the Middle East an Old Covenant Israel, a desolate house hanging out in Jerusalem where the biggest recognizable landmark there is an Islamic Golden Dome Mosque/Shrine.
If it was a Church, I’d still call Jerusalem today a desolate house.
The Church as a Spiritual Israel is a New Covenant foundation, built with better Promises and the perfect sacrifice.
And before it peacocks around like it’s some big schiff, it’s as serpent led and corrupted as Jerusalem, Jerusalem.
They need each other.
And it’s like watching the blind lead the blind.
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